Gates Calls for a Final Push to Eradicate Polio 3 Andromeda’s Once and Future Stars 6 Health Chip Gives Instant Diagnoses 8 Secondhand Television Exposure Linked to Eating Disorders 10 Perception of Our Heartbeat Influences Our Body Image 12 Tablet Splitting Is a Highly Inaccurate and Potentially Dangerous Practice 13 Solar Research Instrument 'Fills the Gap,' Views Sun's Innermost Corona 15 Using Cassava to Address Vitamin A Deficiency 17 'Natural' Asymmetry of Biological Molecules May Have Come from Space 19 Extinct Insect Completely Reconstructed in 3-D 21 Pesky Bacterial Slime Reveals Its Survival Secrets 23 What Carbon Cycle? College Students Lack Scientific Literacy, Study Finds 25 Packaging That Knows When Food Is Going Bad 26 Hidden Literary References Discovered in the Mona Lisa 27 Telescope Calibration May Help Explain Mystery of Universe's Expansion 28 Functionally Graded Shape Memory Polymers Developed 30 Household Sewage: Not Waste, but a Vast New Energy Resource 32 How to Soften a Diamond 33 Mother’s Milk Improves Physical Condition of Future Adolescents, Study Finds 35 Protective Properties of Green Tea Uncovered 37 Malfunctioning Gene Associated With Lou Gehrig's Disease Leads to Nerve-Cell Death 39 Helicopter Transport Increases Survival for Seriously Injured Patients, Study Finds 41 Male Pattern Balding May Be Due to Stem Cell Inactivation 43 Films for Façades: New Building Material Offers New Design Options 45 Freshwater Methane Release Changes Greenhouse Gas Equation 47 Surprising Flares in Crab Nebula 49 Deep Interior of Moon Resembles Earth's Core 51 Cancer in a Single Catastrophe: Chromosome Crisis Common in Cancer Causation 53 Brain training for tinnitus reverses ringing in ears 55 Ethereal quantum state stored in solid crystal 56 Scorn over claim of teleported DNA 57 Spinning cosmic dust motes set speed record 59 Fledgling space firm will use old Soviet gear 61 Most detailed image of night sky unveiled 62 Thunderstorms caught making antimatter 63 Smallest planet is nearly Earth-sized 64 Glasses-free 3D TV tries to broaden out its appeal 66 Mimic-bots learn to do as we do 68 Why social networks are sucking up more of your time 70 New Google Goggles app that solves Sudoku puzzles 71 Sistema de Infotecas Centrales Universidad Autónoma de Coahuila Smart contact lenses for health and head-up displays 72 A fat tummy shrivels your brain 74 We can feed 9 billion people in 2050 75 Did magma rain on the early Earth? 76 Foxes zero in on prey via Earth's magnetic field 77 Would a placebo work for you? 78 Chess grandmasters use twice the brain 79 Mind gym: Putting meditation to the test 80 V. S. Ramachandran: Mind, metaphor and mirror neurons 84 Uncertainty principle: How evolution hedges its bets 87 Pi's nemesis: Mathematics is better with tau 91 Sozzled superconductors sizzle with speed 93 Housing 9 billion won't take techno-magic 96 Musical Chills: Why They Give Us Thrills 97 Most Distant Galaxy Cluster Identified 99 Water on Moon Originated from Comets 101 Chemical Analysis Confirms Discovery of Oldest Wine-Making Equipment 103 Brain Predicts Consequences of Eye Movements Based on What We See Next 106 Species Loss Tied to Ecosystem Collapse and Recovery 108 New Glass Stronger and Tougher Than Steel 110 Hubble Zooms in on a Space Oddity 112 NASA Radar Reveals Features on Asteroid 114 Virus Killer Gets Supercharged: Discovery Greatly Improves Common Disinfectant 115 Earth Is Twice as Dusty as in 19th Century, Research Shows 117 'Thirdhand Smoke' May Be Bigger Health Hazard Than Previously Believed 119 Polymer Membranes With Molecular-Sized Channels That Assemble Themselves 120 Eating Vegetables Gives Skin a More Healthy Glow Than the Sun, Study Shows 122 Coiled Nanowires May Hold Key to Stretchable Electronics 124 NASA Tests New Propulsion System for Robotic Lander Prototype 126 'Superstreet' Traffic Design Improves Travel Time, Safety 128 Planck's New View of the Cosmic Theater 130 New Insights Into Sun's Photosphere 132 Study Estimates Land Available for Biofuel Crops 134 NASA Image Shows La Niña-Caused Woes Down Under 136 International Space Station Begins New Era of Utilization 137 Close-Knit Pairs of Supermassive Black Holes Discovered in Merging Galaxies 139 Quantum Quirk Contained 141 Biomedical Breakthrough: Blood Vessels for Lab-Grown Tissues 143 New Measure Trumps HDL Levels in Protecting Against Heart Disease 145 Cosmology Standard Candle Not So Standard After All 147 Scientific Evidence Supports Effectiveness of Chinese Drug for Cataracts 149 No More Mrs. Nice Mom 150 The War on Logic 152 How Did Economists Get It So Wrong? 154 Pushing Petals Up and Down Park Ave. 164 The Grass Is Fake, but the Splendor Real 167 An Artful Environmental Impact Statement 169 A Pink-Ribbon Race, Years Long 171 Tests Show Promise for Early Diagnosis of Alzheimer’s 175 Close Look at Orthotics Raises a Welter of Doubts 177 When Self-Knowledge Is Only the Beginning 180 Heavy Doses of DNA Data, With Few Side Effects 183 Uganda: Male Circumcision May Help Protect Sexual Partners Against Cervical Cancer 186 Lifting a Veil of Fear to See a Few Benefits of Fever 187 Recalling a Fallen Star’s Legacy in High-Energy Particle Physics 190 Bending and Stretching Classroom Lessons to Make Math Inspire 193 A New Econ Core 196 'Academically Adrift' 198 2 Infoteca’s E-Journal No. 144 February 2011 Sistema de Infotecas Centrales Universidad Autónoma de Coahuila Gates Calls for a Final Push to Eradicate Polio By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr. Altaf Qadri/Associated Press TAKING UP THE FIGHT A polio awareness campaign poster was posted on the side of a small shop in a village about 110 miles from Patna, India. Bill Gates has emerged as the loudest voice for the eradication of global polio. On Monday, in a Manhattan town house that once belonged to polio’s most famous victim, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Bill Gates made an appeal for one more big push to wipe out world polio. Although that battle began in 1985 and Mr. Gates started making regular donations to it only in 2005, he has emerged in the last two years both as one of the biggest donors — he has now given $1.3 billion, more than the amount raised over 25 years by Rotary International — and as the loudest voice for eradication. As new outbreaks create new setbacks each year, he has given ever more money, not only for research but for the grinding work on the ground: paying millions of vaccinators $2 or $3 stipends to get pink polio drops into the mouths of children in villages, slums, markets and train stations. He also journeys to remote Indian and Nigerian villages to be photographed giving the drops himself. Though he lacks Angelina Jolie’s pneumatic allure, his lingering “world’s richest man” cologne is just as aphrodisiacal to TV cameras. He also uses that celebrity to press political leaders. Rich Gulf nations have been criticized for giving little for a disease that now chiefly affects Muslim children; last week in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Mr. Gates and Crown Prince Sheik Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan jointly donated $50 million each to vaccinate children in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In Davos, Switzerland, Mr. Gates and the British prime minister, David 3 Infoteca’s E-Journal No. 144 February 2011 Sistema de Infotecas Centrales Universidad Autónoma de Coahuila Cameron, announced that Britain would double its $30 million donation. Last month, when the Pakistani president, Asif Ali Zardari, went to Washington for the diplomat Richard C. Holbrooke’s funeral, Mr. Gates offered him $65 million to initiate a new polio drive. Twelve days later, publicly thanking him, Mr. Zardari did so. However, even as he presses forward, Mr. Gates faces a hard question from some eradication experts and bioethicists: Is it right to keep trying? Although caseloads are down more than 99 percent since the campaign began in 1985, getting rid of the last 1 percent has been like trying to squeeze Jell-O to death. As the vaccination fist closes in one country, the virus bursts out in another. In 1985, Rotary raised $120 million to do the job as its year 2000 “gift to the world.” The effort has now cost $9 billion, and each year consumes another $1 billion. By contrast, the 14-year drive to wipe out smallpox, according to Dr. Donald A. Henderson, the former World Health Organization officer who began it, cost only $500 million in today’s dollars. Dr. Henderson has argued so outspokenly that polio cannot be eradicated that he said in an interview last week: “I’m one of certain people that the W.H.O. doesn’t invite to its experts’ meetings anymore.” Recently, Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, the influential British medical journal, said via Twitter that “Bill Gates’s obsession with polio is distorting priorities in other critical BMGF areas. Global health does not depend on polio eradication.” (The initials are for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.) And Arthur L. Caplan, director of the University of Pennsylvania’s bioethics center, who himself spent nine months in a hospital with polio as a child, said in an interview, “We ought to admit that the best we can achieve is control.” Those arguments infuriate Mr. Gates. “These cynics should do a real paper that says how many kids they’re really talking about,” he said in an interview. “If you don’t keep up the pressure on polio, you’re accepting 100,000 to 200,000 crippled or dead children a year.” Right now, there are fewer than 2,000. The skeptics acknowledge that they are arguing for accepting more paralysis and death as the price of shifting that $1 billion to vaccines and other measures that prevent millions of deaths from pneumonia, diarrhea, measles, meningitis and malaria.